Yerushalmi Ketubot 2:5 ירושלמי כתובות ב׳:ה׳

MISHNAH: If a woman said, I was married but I am divorced⁹⁰She is new in the community and produces no divorce document., she is to be trusted, since the mouth which forbade is the mouth which permits. But if there are witnesses that she is married and she says, I am divorced, she is not trustworthy⁹¹If the witnesses know of her marriage but do not know of her divorce, she has to prove her assertion; in the meantime she is treated as legally married and cannot remarry..

HALAKHAH: “If a woman said, I was married,” etc. It was stated: If the witnesses came after she remarried, she should not leave⁹²Her second marriage should not be dissolved.. Rav Ḥuna and Rebbi Ḥanina both say, not only after she remarried but even after the court authorized her to remarry⁹³In the Babli, 23a, this is a statement of Samuel’s father, of the generation of transition between Tannaïm and Amoraïm.. As the following: A woman came to Rebbi Joḥanan and said to him, I was married but I am divorced, and he permitted her. After she left, they said to him, are not her witnesses at Lod⁹⁴She said that she had been married at Lod. Therefore, it would be possible to check her out by sending for witnesses from Lod.? He said, so I am saying: Should she wait even if her witnesses are at קסוסנון⁹⁵In the editio princeps, the spelling is קסוסנין. {Perhaps cf. Greek κασαυρεῖον, τό, also κασώριον, “brothel”, with assimilation of σ from Greek ρ. The implication is that witnesses in any case would not be considered [E. G.].}? Rebbi Yose bar Rebbi Abun said, there were two cases. In one case, they said to him, are not her witnesses at Lod? In the other case, they said to him, are not her witnesses at Caesarea⁹⁶Caesarea Philippi, much closer to Tiberias than Lod in the South.? And so it was!He said to them, so I am saying: Should she wait even if her witnesses are at קסוסנון?

Rebbi Yudan asked: “I had been married but I was divorced at place X”; if two [witnesses] come and say, no woman was divorced at place X, do they contradict her⁹⁷No answer is given. The Babli (23a) notes, “‘we did not see’ is no proof.” There are divorces done in privacy, and this kind of negative testimony is inadmissible. The reluctance of the Yerushalmi to decidehere is understandable; it may be that the correct spelling of the place in question had not been established and a divorce document is invalid if the names of the persons or of the place are incorrect. {For example, the Jewish community in Basel, Switzerland, was founded by Jews from Alsatia and until after 1918 all divorces were executed in old established Alsatian communities. When it was found necessary to perform divorces in Basel, the problem arose whether to write the name of the city as באזעל following the rules of Western Yiddish in which /a/ = א, /e/ = ע, or באזל since the /e/ is almost inaudible in local speech. The problem had to be settled by an outside expert in the writing of divorce documents.}? Rebbi Yose asked, if she said, I had been married but I was divorced at place X at a certain date,” and two came and said, a woman was divorced at that place⁹⁸But they have no direct knowledge of the specific case in question., but two [others] came and said, no woman was divorced at that place? That is a contradiction of the essence of the testimony; we live off her mouth.

One day, she said, I am married. The next day, she said, I am divorced. We asked her, yesterday you said this, today you say otherwise? She said to them, because of a group of amoral people who wanted to start up with me⁹⁹She needed the protection given in society to married women.. Rebbi Abun in the name of Rebbi Ila: Since she provided an explanation for her words, she can be believed¹⁰⁰In the Babli, 22a, the case and its resolution is tannaïtic, attributed to the Sages of the court at Usha (probably under Antoninus Pius).. A similar case: Samuel wanted to sleep with his wife, but she said to him, I am impure¹⁰¹And therefore forbidden for an additional 10 days.. The next day, she said, I am pure. He said to her, yesterday, you said impure, today pure? She said to him, I did not feel well enough at that moment. He came and asked Rav, who told him, since she provided an explanation for her words, she can be believed¹⁰²In the Babli, 22a/b, Samuel accepted the ruling for everybody except himself; cf. Tosaphot 22b, s.v. ואפילו..